This is everything I've come to expect from a Scandinavian noir. It's dark, complex, disturbing, and I couldn't look away.It's hard to nail down exactly what The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is in a few simple sentences. It's a multi-layered story with several different mysteries that are sometimes closely and sometimes loosely intertwined. There is a historical disappearance, a hunt for a serial killer, and even a financial mystery all wrapped up in one. Along the way, we are introduced to two c...

I'm very late to this party but... best mystery I've read in a while!

WARNING! This is going to be a long TED Talk because: I could talk about this book all day without breathing pauses and I’d still not finish everything I want to say about it. 4.45/5 ⭐ for this one because I couldn't convince myself to give it 5 stars, no idea why though.Full review on my Blog: The Dacian She-Wolf 🐺 “I’d reckon you’d bite off my hand if I laid a finger on you”. As Dragan Armansky felt in that particular moment about Lisbeth Salander, I felt that about her th...

Buckle up. It's gonna be...a slow ride until about halfway through. Then it's hairpin turn after hairpin turn at breakneck speed. Whiplash.This book was a bit difficult to get into. Mikael Blomkvist (a journalist) is sentenced to jail for liable. He knows he's right. His team knows he's right. But they don't have enough evidence to overturn it. His magazine is about to go under and with this jail scandal....let's just say life isn't a bouquet of roses.Henrik Vanger - ex-head of the Vanger corpor...

(A) 85% | Extraordinary
Notes: It's a logical, captivating mystery where everything clicks into place. It gives backwoods Sweden a Transylvania feel.

Women are raised to routinely fear rape.“If you go at night, take a friend.” “Check under the car and in your backseat before you get in.” “I’m just saying it’s a good idea to know where the exits are.” “I got you this whistle for your keychain, you know, just so you have it.” “You were an hour later than I thought you’d be! We called the police!” “Oh, that’s pepper spray; I keep it with me just in case.” “I just make sure I get my keys out and check for other weapons if I’m getting off work lat...

I've heard and read many complaints about Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo:1. It's misogynistic. 2. It's packed with cliché.3. It's too convoluted. 4. It's too disturbing.5. Lisbeth wasn't autistic enough or was foolishly autistic.6. There were too many red herrings, and the damn Nazi red herring didn't have the usual payoff.7. Too/Two many plots. 8. Too hard on Leviticus. I will answer these in a moment, but first I must declare that I am an unrepentant fan of this book. This is ...

Swedish people are nuts! I realize that’s a bit of a broad generalization and it sounds a bit rude, but I don’t care. Because more often than not, I’m nuts too.I was born and raised in Minnesota, and if you know our state history, you’re already aware that we were predominantly settled and populated by Swedish (and Norwegian) immigrants. So not only are many Minnesota residents of Scandinavian descent, myself included, a lot of our quirky mannerisms and even our accents are commonly attributed t...

I really don't understand the critical orgasms over this book. Amazon pushed it on me for weeks, and the minute I stepped into Borders an employee ran over and recommended it. Thinking, this really better be the best book I've ever read, I took it up to the checkstand, where the register guy asked: "Did one of our employees recommend this?" Um, yeah. And Amazon, too. So of course I asked him why. "Oh," he replied, "we've been told to recommend it this week." That should have tipped me off right ...

Hey, kids, if you like books in which the only major descriptive moments happen during sexual torture scenes, where major characters lack motive, and where the red herrings...stink ... this book's for you!I may feel less strongly after a few days, but I am having a hard time believing this book has hit the best-seller lists in multiple countries.**Rant containing Mild Spoilers**Here are my complaints: 1. The entire book sets you up to think that the alleged killing/s were perpetrated by one or m...